Stallions get Spring Creek next

Published: Sunday, November 4, 2012 at 10:30 AM.

Southwest soccer coach John Sweeney gave the Stallions high marks for effort, but he passed out a more middling grade for how intelligent they played.

But the only score that mattered was on the scoreboard, which showed the Stallions claimed a 6-1 victory over Ayden-Grifton in an often physical second-round match in the NCHSAA 1-A soccer playoffs.

“I thought we played really, really hard,” Sweeney said. “We weren’t always very smart. I felt like we were trying to kind of cram the ball down the middle of the pitch when that was clearly where Ayden-Grifton was strongest.

“But our defense played pretty well. We kept (chipping) away at it and found a way to score some goals.”

In a match that featured five yellow cards and one red card, with all but one (a yellow) coming in the second half, Southwest was led by Austin Tausch, who had 2 goals and 2 assists, and Paul Bishop, who scored twice.

The Stallions (10-2-2), which had a first-round bye as the No. 1 seed out of the Coastal Plains Conference, will play host to Spring Creek (13-2-3), the No. 1 seed out of the Carolina Conference, on Tuesday or Wednesday, with the time to be determined.

Southwest soccer coach John Sweeney gave the Stallions high marks for effort, but he passed out a more middling grade for how intelligent they played.

But the only score that mattered was on the scoreboard, which showed the Stallions claimed a 6-1 victory over Ayden-Grifton in an often physical second-round match in the NCHSAA 1-A soccer playoffs.

“I thought we played really, really hard,” Sweeney said. “We weren’t always very smart. I felt like we were trying to kind of cram the ball down the middle of the pitch when that was clearly where Ayden-Grifton was strongest.

“But our defense played pretty well. We kept (chipping) away at it and found a way to score some goals.”

In a match that featured five yellow cards and one red card, with all but one (a yellow) coming in the second half, Southwest was led by Austin Tausch, who had 2 goals and 2 assists, and Paul Bishop, who scored twice.

The Stallions (10-2-2), which had a first-round bye as the No. 1 seed out of the Coastal Plains Conference, will play host to Spring Creek (13-2-3), the No. 1 seed out of the Carolina Conference, on Tuesday or Wednesday, with the time to be determined.

Spring Creek beat Midway 3-0 Saturday.

Ayden-Grifton, the No. 3 seed out of the Carolina Conference, finishes 10-5-1.

“I like the work rate tonight,” Tausch said. “We worked pretty hard. We didn’t necessarily do what we wanted to with the ball, but we still worked hard when we did get it. We’ve just got to keep working hard. That’s pretty much it with 1-A soccer. You work hard you can go pretty far in the playoffs.”

The Stallions, who were smaller but quicker than the Chargers, dominated the play early. In the first nine minutes, Anthony Padgett and Tausch each hit the goal post while Kevin Hounshell had a point-blank shot slide just wide of the net after collecting a rebound in front of the goal.

And in that same span the Stallions were also called for being offside three times.

But then Southwest went on a three-goal binge in just over a two-minute span. Tausch got the ball rolling off an assist from Jose Morales at 29:33 and then just 58 seconds later Tausch rifled a pass parallel to the goal line from the left to Bishop, who fired it into the back of the net.

Then with 27:32 left Morales scored off an assist from Tausch to make it 3-0.

That, however, was it for awhile as the Stallions seemed to hit a lull while Sweeney began to substitute for his starters.

“We kind of lost our groove for a few minutes,” Tausch said. “But all it took was a goal and we got it back.”

Sweeney had a more analytic explanation.

“The problem was we made things more complicated than they needed to be,” he said. “We did put some new guys in, and they weren’t learning from the experience of that first group of guys. So rather than pinpoint some areas where we could see that maybe they were a little bit weaker we decided to try something completely different. That something different wasn’t really working.”

Ayden-Grifton got its only goal on about a 50-yard “moon ball” shot that eluded leaping goalkeeper Nick Matics as it slipped just under the crossbar.

“That kid could thump it,” Sweeney said. “He missed his calling. He should be kicking field goals.”

Actually, he does just that for the Ayden-Grifton football team, which comes to The Corral on Friday for a second-round 1-AA playoff battle against the Stallions.

The Stallions got the goal back about midway through the second half when a shot by Alex Blake ricocheted around in front of the net before hitting a defender and going in for a 4-1 lead. Bishop then made it 5-1 when, after dribbling down the far side, fired a shot low to the near post that slipped past goalkeeper Carlos Lopez with 12:03 left.

Tausch got his second goal — and Southwest’s last — with 10:22 left a second half that saw four yellow cards issued as well as a red card with 4:59 left against Morales, who was ejected after saying something to the referee after he appeared to have been fouled.

The ejection means Morales must sit out the next two matches.

“This was a little chippy tonight,” Sweeney said. “It was.”

Tausch said “it got out of hand,” but like Sweeney didn’t want to say anything more about the physical nature of the match. And while not pleased with all he saw from his team, Sweeney was certainly pleased with the numbers on the scoreboard.

“If you win and advance, then I don’t think it can be a bad step in the playoffs. It is a good first step in that we did score some goals and that we showed that playoff intensity that’s going to be needed,” he said. “And it let us see what weaknesses to work on the next couple of days.”